Fulton County’s unemployment rate currently stands at 9 percent, according to preliminary reports from October.

This is a 1.3 percent drop from October 2011’s rate of 10.3 percent.

The labor force in Fulton County has grown from October 2011 to October 2012 from 450,973 to 458,408.

The number of residents employed is 416,988, higher than October 2011’s number of 404,509.

The number of unemployed has dropped from 46,464 in October 2011 to October 2012’s 41,420.

Unemployment in the county has dropped by two-tenths of a percentage point from 9.2 percent in September. The labor force in September was 456,752, with 414,797 employed and 41,955 unemployed.

The city of East Point’s numbers are reported by the Georgia Department of Labor, as it has a population of 25,000 or greater.

East Point’s unemployment rate is higher than Fulton County’s at 12.4 percent.

The preliminary numbers from October show East Point’s labor force as 15,705, which is slightly less than the 15,718 reported in October 2011.

Those employed in October 2011, however, was 13,351, less than October 2012’s 13,763. In October 2011, 2,367 people were unemployed, compared to 1,942 in October 2012.

The rate of unemployment in East Point in October 2011 was 15.1 percent.

Fulton County’s unemployment rate stands slightly higher than metro Atlanta’s, which is 8.2 percent.

According to the Georgia Department of Labor, the unemployment rate dropped due to an increase of 19,500 new jobs in the metro area, raising the total to 2.353 jobs in October. Jobs have increased by 1.5 percent from October 2011, where the number was 2.319 million.